HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES NEWS
HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES NEWS
Exploring Critical Business and Legal Issues across the Healthcare and Life Sciences Industries
HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES NEWS
Exploring Critical Business and Legal Issues across the Healthcare and Life Sciences Industries
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5 Questions with a Health Lawyer: Steven J. Schnelle

by | Sep 17, 2020 |

Steven J. Schnelle
Practice Focus Area: Healthcare
Office: New York
Years at Firm: 2.5 years

What is your favorite part about practicing healthcare law at McDermott?

Without a doubt, the people! Every day I have the pleasure and honor of working with brilliant and unique colleagues that recognize and appreciate one another’s contributions to our team, both personal and professional. And I’m not just talking about my colleagues with signatures bearing the McDermott logo—our clients are doing amazing things and give us the opportunity every day to engage creatively and collaboratively to make a difference. There’s nothing better than celebrating an achievement with people you care about!

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today?

I think they’re one and the same—the dynamism of the healthcare system in the United States. With constantly evolving laws, regulations, interpretive guidance, enforcement priorities, judicial precedent, industry players and trends, there’s never a slow moment in healthcare. Companies that can anticipate and respond to these changes enjoy tremendous tailwinds, while those that become entrenched in the status quo stand to lose out. Our clients benefit from McDermott’s deep bench of accomplished healthcare attorneys who often play a central role in these changes, giving our teams highly developed insights as these changes happen.

What kind of client work gets you most excited when it comes across your desk?

Work that involves existential issues, or issues that implicate entire business lines, is particularly exciting for [...]

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5 Questions with a Health Policy Specialist: Rodney L. Whitlock of McDermott+Consulting

by | Aug 20, 2020 |

Rodney L. Whitlock, Ph.D
Vice President, McDermott+Consulting
Focus Area: Healthcare Policy
Years at M+: 1.5 years

What is your favorite part about your health policy work at McDermott+Consulting?

Healthcare policy, politics and process is complicated. It is a constant challenge to discern and anticipate the future of healthcare policy for clients. It is the constant intellectual challenge of operating in healthcare policy that I enjoy most about what I do. Specifically, I like that I can bring my 21 years of experience in Congress to my clients, move from subject matter to subject matter and play at a high level. For example, I can go from talking about prescription drugs in the morning then later on in the day dealing with an issue very specific to a client. It’s the challenge of having to be in different spaces at different times of the day that I actually enjoy.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today?

The current global pandemic has significantly impacted healthcare. All of the pressures on pricing and value that existed before the pandemic are now accentuated by the response to the crisis. The recovery from the loss of revenue experienced by providers throughout the year 2020 will be felt for a long time to come. The way practices have changed to accommodate the pandemic will also impact the provision of healthcare services and how they are reimbursed for a long time [...]

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More Than a Decade at the Top; McDermott Earns 11th Chambers USA Band 1 Healthcare Practice National Ranking

by | May 6, 2020 |

We are pleased to announce that our Healthcare Group received a national Band 1 ranking for the eleventh year in a row in the 2020 edition of Chambers USA. After more than a decade at the top, we are once again the only one to rank Band 1 nationally. The Health team also earned Band 1 state-level rankings for its healthcare practices in California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, DC. Additionally, the team also earned the national Spotlight Table ranking for the Privacy and Data Security: Healthcare category. In addition, nearly half of the Healthcare Industry Advisory group partners were individually ranked.

Click here to view the full announcement.



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Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Matt Perreault

by | Feb 14, 2020 | ,

Matt Perreault
Office: Boston
Years at Firm:  2

What is your favorite part about practicing health care law at McDermott? 

As so many of my colleagues have expressed throughout this series, my favorite part of practicing healthcare law at McDermott is being a member of a collaborative and collegial team that is advising our diverse clients on their most critical and pressing issues.  Having spent much of my career in-house, I have experienced firsthand how McDermott’s approach to client service, anchored in humility, empathy and practicality, consistently delivers differentiated value and results for our clients.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today? 

I believe that the transition to value-based arrangements will continue to accelerate. Collaborative Transformations will proliferate and present both tremendous opportunities for, and challenges to, traditional healthcare providers. Hospitals, health systems and other providers who embrace the challenges and opportunities presented by this paradigm shift will reap the benefits of their investments.  Those who resist this cultural change risk losing ground and market share to their competitors.

What kind of client work gets you most excited when it comes across your desk? 

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Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Jeremy Earl

by | Dec 16, 2019 | ,

Jeremy Earl
Partner
Office: Washington, DC
Years at the Firm: 10

What is your favorite part about practicing healthcare law at McDermott?

My favorite part about practicing at McDermott is the challenging and constantly evolving nature of the work. Our clients put trust in us to advise them on their toughest legal questions and business challenges. I don’t take that trust lightly and it is exciting to come to work every day to meet and exceed the high expectations clients rightly have for us.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today?

I represent managed care companies, which has traditionally meant health insurers and health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Due to legislative and competitive factors, healthcare financing and delivery is rapidly evolving and new models are being introduced to compete with traditional health insurers and HMOs. In 2012, Ezekiel Emanuel and Jeffrey Liebman boldly predicted in the New York Times that “[b]y 2020, the American health insurance industry will be extinct” and replaced by ACOs. That this has not happened is, at least in part, due to innovation by health insurers through such efforts as expanding value-based payment models.

At the same time, the traditional roles of providers and health insurers are blurring and providers and risk-bearing intermediaries are introducing innovative ways to finance healthcare delivery that [...]

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Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Marshall E. Jackson, Jr.

by | Oct 10, 2019 | ,

Marshall E. Jackson, Jr.
Associate
Office: Washington, DC
Year at Firm: 4

What is your favorite part about practicing healthcare law at McDermott? 

My favorite part of practicing healthcare law at McDermott is working with clients that are out in front tackling very interesting and unique issues. The healthcare industry continues to evolve, and our clients are at the forefront. The changes in the industry have required clients to navigate areas of uncertainty, and our clients look to us to help them navigate that uncertainty. I have been blessed to sit shoulder to shoulder with a dynamic McDermott team helping our clients tackle new and unprecedented issues. No day is a dull day.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today? 

Many of our clients face the challenge of balancing the need to deliver affordable, quality healthcare to people when and where they need it, while maximizing return on investment for their business within a hot healthcare market. While one side seems provider-centered and the other investor-centered, providers and investors alike grapple with this balancing act. In addressing this balance in the context of an ever-changing industry, our clients are seizing opportunities to embrace new ways to deliver healthcare, and forming strategic partnerships and collaborations to strike the balance. We are increasingly [...]

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Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: James A. Cannatti III

by | Sep 23, 2019 | ,

Name: James A. Cannatti III
Practice Focus Area: Healthcare Fraud & Abuse
Office: Washington, DC
Years at Firm: 1

What is your favorite part about practicing healthcare law at McDermott?

My favorite part of working in the McDermott Health practice, and at the Firm generally, is the team approach to advising clients. Each of us has unique subject matter knowledge and experience in different areas of law. Very often, our clients require advice that cuts across multiple areas and issues. By working together across different disciplines within the Firm and within the Health practice we can provide comprehensive advice and counsel to our clients – not just advice on one discrete issue – and approach things from a broader, strategic perspective to help meet their needs.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today?

I work in the healthcare regulatory space, focusing on federal and state fraud and abuse issues. As the healthcare industry has evolved and focused more on delivering value, many fraud and abuse laws, which were written decades ago, have not kept pace and have been seen as barriers to innovation. Over the last few years regulators have signaled a willingness to rethink how some of the laws should be applied to novel arrangements and approaches to care. The evolving regulatory landscape and the potential removal of some [...]

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Five Questions with a Life Sciences Lawyer: Nora Klein

by | Aug 29, 2019 |

Nora Klein
Associate
Office: Chicago
Years at Firm: 2

What is an interesting fact about yourself that others may not know?

I played college golf at University of Illinois and in September 2019 I will be competing in the United States Women’s Mid-Amateur National Championship in Flagstaff Arizona. This will be the 33rd annually national championship for female golfers over 25 years old. The United States Golf Association runs 16 National Championships a year and to be able to play in one is every golfer’s dream. I feel so grateful to work at a place that quite literally supports me on and off the golf course.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today?

The biggest challenge for our clients is also the biggest opportunity – how to grow in the revolutionary and highly profitable yet competitive life sciences industry, which is continuously expanding into new and often groundbreaking subsectors. Navigating these issues makes working at McDermott an enjoyable challenge. We not only need to assist our clients in finding innovative ways to grow their enterprises and remain compliant with healthcare rules and regulations, but also provide thoughtful, forward-looking solutions and plans that allow them to grow as these new subsectors emerge.

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Five Questions with a Health Policy Specialist: Rachel Stauffer of McDermott+Consulting

by | Aug 13, 2019 |

Rachel Stauffer
Director, McDermott+Consulting
Focus Area: Health Policy Advocacy and Lobbying
Years at McDermott+Consulting: 1.5

What is your favorite part about your health policy work at McDermott+Consulting? 

We have a deep bench of experts on a wide variety of health policy issues. This allows our team to be involved in so many different aspects of health policy – and that is my favorite part. There is no “normal” or “typical” day here. We work on different types of projects (advocacy, stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, for example) for different clients, including hospital systems, diagnostics, rural health, physician groups and others, in any given day. It keeps me on my toes and gives me an opportunity to learn new things every day.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today? 

The biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients today is the same: the unsettled health policy landscape. The politics around health policy are not as clear cut as they used to be, even just a few years ago. This puts clients in a unique position to shape and influence policy in ways that were not necessarily available a few years ago. On the other hand, there is little ability to predict what happens next. , It can be challenging to navigate and understand where to focus and how to deliver your message when the politics become murky but, that is [...]

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Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Drew Elizabeth McCormick

by | Jul 30, 2019 |

Drew Elizabeth McCormick
Associate
Office: Boston
Years at Firm: 2

What is your favorite part about practicing health care law at McDermott? 

I get to work with world class lawyers on cutting edge issues and help our clients navigate the challenges of succeeding in a very dynamic, heavily regulated industry. I am constantly being challenged and learning new things, all while having the honor of helping guide our clients in transforming health care.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today? 

Definitely the ability to take on risk and succeed in a value-based payment paradigm. We are seeing many shifts in the industry, which are largely being driven by fundamental changes in reimbursement structures away from fee for service. Compounding this, the regulatory framework is lagging behind in many regards, creating tensions and uncertainty that our clients lean on us to help them resolve.

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